First Anniversary Giveaway Day 2, with bento memories

2 Dec 2008 by maki

This is the second day of the week long giveaway party to celebrate the first anniversary of Just Bento, as well as the fifth anniversary of Just Hungry. (The first day of Just Bento’s part is here.) While over on Just Hungry I’m looking back at the first five years of the site, here I’d like to go even further back in time, and talk about some memorable bentos from my past. (If you want to skip ahead, today’s giveaway is at the bottom.)

Raw carrot flowers

My mother was always busy while I was growing up - she was often working, or had my younger sisters to worry about. Nevertheless she always made me an obento every day when I needed one. But sometimes, she’d forget to put in something.

I don’t know why I still remember this, but when I was 5 years old and in kindergarten, I opened my little pink bento box to find it full of rice topped with beautifully cut carrot flowers…and nothing else. I looked in my bag for another container, and found nothing. On top of that, the carrot flowers were raw! I still remember picking one up with my matching pink chopsticks, and the awful taste (to a 5 year old) of those hard carrot pieces. Soon I was crying, my heart full of despair. How could my mother do this to me? My kind kindergarten teacher took me aside, assessed the situation, and gave me some of her okazu (sides) to eat with my plain rice, which I ate while still sobbing.

My young mother had forgotten to put in the okazu, and hadn’t known that she was supposed to cook the carrot flowers! She’d seen a picture of them in a magazine without instructions, and in the busy household in a small town in Saitama prefecture where she’d grown up, they didn’t have time to cut carrots into fancy shapes.

A bento box full of gyoza

After my first year of kindergarten, the whole family moved to England and then the U.S. for several years. Once back in Japan, I had school lunch in elementary school, but once I got to middle school (junior high school) I needed bentos again. By this time my mother had a job, not to mention another child, but she still managed to make me an obento every morning. They weren’t fancy or pretty like those of some of my classmates, but they were always delicious. I still remember the bentos of my school years with a lot of fondness.

One day, I opened my very unfeminine no-nonsense aluminum bento box to find it full of plump gyoza dumplings. I think there were a dozen in there. They were lined on the bottom with…a raw cabbage leaf. There was nothing else — my mother had forgotten to pack the rice! My 14 year old self didn’t burst into tears, but did find it a bit strange. I traded a few of the dumplings with my friends for some of their rice, which worked out fine.

When I got home, I quizzed my mother about my gyoza-only bento. She admitted that she had indeed, forgotten the rice. Then I asked her about the raw cabbage leaf. She stared at me, and then at the nearly-empty bento box, and exclaimed, “but I thought it was lettuce!”

If you combine the two missing-parts bentos separated by 9 years, I think it makes a rather decent bento. But I did cook the carrot flowers!

Even if you are as busy as my mom was, you can still make your kids’, or your own, bento lunches pretty with the items in today’s giveaway. Maybe your kids will remember the bento lunches you make for them when they are adults, and embarass you with old stories too!

Shinzi Katoh’s Ringo (Apple) bento accessories are too cute for words, and the Kyarappa (Charappa) food cutter set will have you making kawaii onigiri with eyes and limbs in no time.

You’ll get 2 furikake shakers (you could use them as salt/peppers too), 2 sets of sauce containers, a set of tiny food containers, and the Kyarappa cutter set of 3, which comes with a recipe pamphlet in Japanese.

Please note that the Ringo accessories are not dishwasher safe. They should be washed carefully, since the faces can get rubbed off (as with many Shinzi Katoh bento accessories). The Kyarappa cutter package recommends handwashing too.

DEADLINE: Your comment/entry must be posted before Midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Friday, December 5th.

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for entering, and check the front page for the giveaways that are still open! The winner will be announced next week!
Good luck!

My dad tells similar stories about his school lunches. His mom would carefully make him lunch every day… Exactly the same… A PB&J sandwich, and a curl cut carrot (raw). My grandmother died before I was born, so we’ve never been able to reproduce this curl cut carrot. My dad describes it as a whole carrot cut into a really long curl. I always picture one really long curl similar to if you were trying to peel an apple in one strip.

Thank you Maki, for enabling a lowly ‘dorm room’ student to eat healthily. Lunch time is now an eagerly-awaited part of my day and admittedly, would be even more so should I be fortunate enough to win today’s giveaway :)

I just wanted to let you know that I eagerly check both Just Bento and Just Hungry every day in the hopes you’ve posted! My husband appreciates the many recipes I’ve used from your site (for me, personally, it’s the bacon furikake…ummmmmm, bacon… I’ve made that at least four times), and I thank you for a fun read on so many days. Thanks for being here for us, and I hope we have many more years of your wonderful articles!

Kathy in S.B.

P.S. Errr, and if I was to win the prize for today, I promise it would be loved and cherished!

So adorable!
Yes, I do make bento lunches for my son, although I don’t know if the term is technically correct for what I put together for him. No rice and no sides since he is just too darn American. Nothing that requires utensils. sigh Maybe when he is a little older.

As for your mother’s forgetfulness, that sounds like my own maternal amnesia. It happens. A lot. sigh again

Eating a bento made by Mom everyday is like opening a present from Mom everyday. The anticipation of opening it then finding out it’s filled with your favorite foods, or in some cases, a miss rather than a hit. =) Something exciting to look forward to everyday!

Hi !!! Happy 1st Anniversary !!
Thank You for all the creative Bento recipes and the GREAT memories shared..I’m new at this, but I have learned to cook the carrots, though I have left out many other parts, when packing in a rush!! LOL May you keep blogging for many years to come….
Sakiblu in Moorestown, New Jersey USA

When I was very small, I was kind of a picky eater, so my mother used to send me off to preschool with a thermos-full of the only thing I would consent to eat at the time - chicken noodle soup - the dry lipton kind.
Mom would put a bit of the soup mix into the thermos and add hot water, and by lunchtime, the soup would be cooked!

Except for the time that she forgot to put in the soup mix, and I had a thermos full of warm water for lunch…

I had a look at your website when i first started making bento for myself about a year ago. I wasn’t sure how i could go about bento with more western food ideas until i looked through your posts. I think in a way your site inspired me to be more adventurous with my bento and throw myself into the making of it a bit more. I have a small set of sweet bento accessories now and i made very attractive lunches. Now my partner is interested in bento too! I will be making lunches for him at university soon. So keep up the good work on the site, and please enter me for the cute bento accessories competition :D Would be an awsome addition to my new home!

I’ve been looking for things like this for a while, they are too cute for words! Despite me being 19, I still like making my lunches kawaii, they add some happiness to my day while I’m at college and have tests to take back to back, then open my lunchbox to find a nice lunch that brings a smile to my face. I loved the stories (I sometimes put dumplings in my obento, but usually do no rice and lots of veggies), and I think you were quite lucky to have a mother that took time to make lunches. My mother says she wishes she could have done that with us when we were little.